And yet ... Alexandria was NOT a flooded island. Weird

A new study has confirmed that at the time of the Pharaohs the world's climate was significantly hotter than it now is for thousands of years - and yet the seas don't appear to have risen, nor did the various other doomsday scenarios foretold by climate alarmists take place.

The new research, funded by the US government's National Science Foundation, seeks to pull together various different measures of what the temperature might have been in the distant past. Methods included analyses of ancient pollen, deep ice cores, shells from marine organisms etc. The project was led by Shaun Marcott of Oregon State uni.

Marcott and his colleagues, published today in leading boffinry mag Science, have this to say:

Our results indicate that global mean temperature for the decade 20002009 has not yet exceeded the warmest temperatures of the early Holocene (5000 to 10,000 years ago)

Forget the spike at the right in this context

The graph produced by the researchers, to layman's eyes, appears to contradict this: but that's because Marcott and his crew say they produced it by bolting on the latest version of the famous/infamous "hockey stick" graph, produced partly from thermometer readings in recent times by the famous climate zealot Michael Mann, at the end. The problem with doing that is that the rest of the graph cannot and does not display any variation on scales shorter than 120 years: had there been thermometers recording temperatures globally for the last 10,000 years there may have been many such up-and-down spikes to be seen. That's why Marcott et al freely acknowledge that the world was hotter than it now is for much of the period before 5,000 years ago.

Nonetheless the team consider that the recent rises in temperature are cause for concern against the background they have produced.

"In the last 100 years, the increase in carbon dioxide through increased emissions from human activities has been significant," comments Marcott.

Even so, other climate scientists point out that the methods used by Marcott and his team would not be able to detect previous sharp temperature spikes, which are very plausible (the temperature everywhere on Earth goes up and down wildly off the graph above during any short-term period). Robert Rohde, of the BEST project at Berkeley in California - an organisation well known to lean heavily toward the warmist position - pointed this out very clearly to the New York Times:

In essence, their reconstruction appears to tell us about past changes in climate with a resolution of about 400 years. That is more than adequate for gathering insights about millennial scale changes during the last 10,000 years, but it will completely obscure any rapid fluctuations having durations less than a few hundred years.

And indeed, less warmist-friendly scientists would quarrel with other aspects of the results. Many respectable studies and climatologists indicate that there was a "medieval warm period" around a thousand years ago - and probably also a "roman warm" two thousand years back - during which temperatures were higher than they are today, as we see in this graph from last year produced by scientists at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz:

Phew, what a scorcher, Marcus. Let's get in the frigidarium.

Many warmist scientists would agree with Marcott's picture. They would say that the Medieval and Roman warm times, though the evidence for them is strong, were local phenomena only. Europe may have been warmer then, goes the thinking, but the world as a whole was not (although doubt has lately been cast on this by research which indicates that the Medieval warming took place in Antarctica also).

Be all that as it may, today's study certainly seems to ram the point home that at the time of the first pharaoh - perhaps five thousand years ago - it was significantly warmer than it is now and had been so for much of the preceding couple of millennia.

This is interesting, because it is widely believed in some circles (specifically, dubious warmist thinktanks funded in large part by Google's Eric Schmidt) that global warming to be expected just in this century will mean sea level rises on a scale of a metre or more by the year 2100. More serious scientists agree that such sea level rises are on the cards, but suggest - more plausibly, given the immense mass of the ice sheets which would have to melt - that they will take much longer to appear: so much so that in all probability there will be little difference between the 20th and 21st centuries in terms of sea levels.

Nonetheless, according to those more realistic experts, even if we stop emitting carbon right now - so, perhaps, containing eventual warming to levels like those seen in the pre-Egyptian millennia - we could expect a metre of sea-level rise above present levels by the year 3000 AD.

And yet the ancient Egyptians, despite having lived through pretty much exactly that scenario, don't appear to have seen anything like those sort of sea levels. Respectable geologists project that sea levels just a metre above today's would see the port city of Alexandria become an isolated island or peninsula off the Egyptian coast: but that didn't happen. The Old Egyptian town of Rhakotis on the site which later became Alexandria was a major urban centre right back to 2600 BC and before. This would hardly have been the case had it been largely inaccessible from the fertile farmland of the Delta (much of whic would have been flooded and useless anyway in that scenario, as is expected in the imminent future by alarmists now).

It's interesting stuff, anyway - and doesn't really seem to support the agenda its authors might support. Marcott et al's paper can be read by subscribers to Sciencehere. ®

I've noticed the anger in the faces and voices of those who worship climate change growing to an unhealthy level. They must know their cult is failing and the desperation is becoming hysterical. No facts will sway their belief of the false inevitable doom that America is causing. Sad sad people.

The big surprise here is that the National Science Foundation actually funded honest research. I'd like to know how BO's hiring screen let these researchers get through.

It is no secret that Hannibal (218 BC) got his elephants locally from Northern Africa and not Central Africa, the nearest source of the giant beasts today. It is also no secret that productive lands extended into the northernmost regions of where the Sahara Desert is today even with the earth being warmer at that period than it is today.

All things considered, global warming is actually a good thing because it brings about a net increase in agricultural production worldwide, thereby making more of the globe inhabitable.

Only from a libtard point of view is this a bad thing because it means the globe can support more than the half-billion or so human beings which it traditionally has for most of human history and which libtards believe is natural or sustainable.

In all fairness, some libtards now admit that that number may be as high as four billion with technological advances. Doesn't that make you feel warm and fuzzy that some of them think our global population only needs to be reduced by 50% or so, rather than the 94% or so formerly believed?

6
posted on 03/11/2013 8:27:11 AM PDT
by Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)

[[They must know their cult is failing and the desperation is becoming hysterical]]

It’s not failing- not by a long shot- they are poised to begin teaching/propogandizing school kids all across america- our ‘dear leader’ is set to pass more andm ore climate control measures, carbon taxes, fines for violators etc- and he’s already foisted many restrictive and unbearable measures on businesses in the name of climate change-

We are the ones losing- not them- We’re just not hearign so much these days how badly we’re losing hte battle- they on the left just figured otu that goign public meant opposition- so now they do everythign behind hte scenes and have practically ordered the main stream media NOT to report the issues so much any more in order to keep the public unaware of what’s happening

This may also explain why Egypt, in the time of the Pharoahs, about a 3100+ year period, may not just have been hotter, but wetter as well as far more agriculturally productive.

To explain, Egypt is very unusual because it typically has only one farm season, that begins with the flooding of the Nile River. Importantly, global cooling or global warming, the Nile is pretty constant in its water level through history.

However, if it was much hotter, it could have also brought more rain, enough for a smaller second farming season. And thus, more abundance.

It has been the contention of the warmists that any rise in temps will mean complete disaster. But it has been proven that there were many instances in the history of the world with temps appreciably warmer than today. For instance, the warming that allowed the Vikings to settle Greenland for 400 years. So if warmer temps means complete disaster, and we know there were many cases of warmer temps in the past, why are we and other life forms still around? It’s a question the warmists wish to squelch.

Nope they knew they were lying to the public- but I’ve said it right along- truth doesn’t mean a thing to the left anymore- they no longer even care if they get caught in a flat out lie- they just ignore the condemnations and plod right along doing whatever the hell they wish to do- even goign so far as to propgandize you8ng kids despite their informaiton being nothign but lies- They are ILLEGALLY takign hard earned money from hard working peopel to ‘pay for’ a ‘problem’ that isn’t a problem caused by man- And they are doing so by intnetionally abusing and misrepresenting the evidence- even goign so far as to lie abotu glacial melt i nthe himalayas- and leaving out damning coutner evidence such as CO2 rising 100 years AFTER the earth warms- NOT before it warmed- Warmign causes a rise in CO2 NOT the other way around- and they know this damn well- yet they refuse to teach the truth to the most vulnerable and easily influenced of society- our kids-

Their ice core sampling is a stinkin joke- and they know this too- they know the problems with it- yet they continue spouting off ‘facts’ that are simply untrue even accordign to their own testing methods-

I ran a blog for years about the lies the left is foisting on us, and was in touch with Marc Morano whio was assistant to James Inhoffe- and he has a bunch of facts that absolutely flat out refute everythign the left is saying- but sadly the main stream media has succeeded in labelling him a ‘warming denier’ (When Marc has said over and over he does NOT deny warming- He only denies that man had ANY hand in it and hsowed by the FACTS that man is not the cause)

The left IS winning this war- they are foisting hteir lies on us, and America just eats it up unfortunately- the left has succeeded in foisting a false sense of ‘American guilt’ on the public and made them think the world’s ills are all our faults and that we must ‘atone for our enviro sins’ and the peopel are buying it hook line and sinker- apparently because it makes them feel good when they seperate paper from plastic and only flush hteir toilets once a day

Importantly, global cooling or global warming, the Nile is pretty constant in its water level through history.

Uh, no. For quite some time the Nile even flowed west to the Atlantic out the mouth of what is now the Niger (ground penetrating radar from the Shuttle exposed the connecting channel McCauley, 1982). At that time, Lake Chad was the size of the Caspian Sea.

There was a time earlier in its history that what is now the Nile had a canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon. When the Mediterranean flooded, that canyon became a sea inlet (from fossil remains drilled in the current channel). There may have been a geophysical volcanic event near the Bayuda Volcanic Field that diverted it back into where it runs today.

Unfortunately, the paper I'm citing is on JSTOR, so there's no copy directly available online.

23
posted on 03/11/2013 5:18:13 PM PDT
by Carry_Okie
(The environment is too complex and too important to be "protected" by government.)

Do you have approximate dates on some of this information? 1) When Nile flowed out of the Niger? 2) When Lake Chad was the size of the Caspian Sea? 3) When the Med. flooded creating a Nile sea inlet? 4) When the geophysical even near the Bayuda Volcanic Field may have occurred?

It still returns to my original point, that for the vast majority of the rise of Egypt as a civilization, the Nile provided an annual flood, which was followed by a single harvest.

This necessitated food storage for the rest of the year, but if it was a successful harvest, also meant that the rest of the year could be used for other things.

However, if in the early part of their rise, there was warmer, wetter conditions, caused by global warming, it might have given them a smaller, secondary growing season, and a food surplus that could be sold, bringing in great wealth.

Yet with the onset of cooler weather, there would be no extra rainfall, and the land outside of the Nile flood region would dry out.

“By 7,000 years ago (5000 B.C.) and lasting for about four millenniums, the earth was warmer than today, perhaps by 4 degrees Fahrenheit... Although the climate cooled a bit after 3000 B.C., it stayed relatively warmer than the modern world until sometime after 1000 B.C., when chilly temperatures became more common.” - Stanford

It still returns to my original point, that for the vast majority of the rise of Egypt as a civilization, the Nile provided an annual flood, which was followed by a single harvest.

This is a bigger point that I'm making than you realize. If you look at the Sphinx, the base of it has WATER erosion, not wind erosion. At that time, the Nile Valley was surrounded by a mesic savannah. The desertification that commenced soon after the Nile Valley civilization began was, in my opinion, the result of the people of the valley assimilating the shepherd culture of the Sahel savannah thereabout. It was that demographic shift from pastoral to agro-urban culture that made Egypt what it became.

That's historic my FRiend. More I can't tell you until I publish.

29
posted on 03/12/2013 8:14:06 AM PDT
by Carry_Okie
(The environment is too complex and too important to be "protected" by government.)

By 7,000 years ago (5000 B.C.) and lasting for about four millenniums, the earth was warmer than today, perhaps by 4 degrees Fahrenheit... Although the climate cooled a bit after 3000 B.C., it stayed relatively warmer than the modern world until sometime after 1000 B.C., when chilly temperatures became more common. - Stanford

I'll get to cause and effect when I publish.

30
posted on 03/12/2013 8:15:09 AM PDT
by Carry_Okie
(The environment is too complex and too important to be "protected" by government.)

Researchers are in a state of near panic as their government grants are drying up due to the sequester. Their only hope is to pump out ever more dire predictions of coming doom, in order to push their particular pet project to the top of the priority heap.

31
posted on 03/12/2013 8:25:08 AM PDT
by Fresh Wind
(The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.)

Sounds as if that shift may have occurred at the end of the Younger Dryas, with changed climate conditions.

The last I read about it, that savannah had been grazed continuously for 14,000 years prior, long enough to have endured climate cycles without interruption. Together with the change in albedo resulting from abandonment and an increasingly fungal soil is why I think the anthropogenic attribution as a cause of desertification may have validity.

Climate changed, no doubt, but it may be as an effect, a cause, or both.

35
posted on 03/12/2013 10:33:56 PM PDT
by Carry_Okie
(The environment is too complex and too important to be "protected" by government.)

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